News and Highlights

The Department of Cell Biology is proud to announce that Professor Bob Bloodgood is the recipient of a 2017 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. Through the years, Bob has been revered for his educational contributions and leadership in the graduate and medical curricula at the School of Medicine, and his interest and support of education has extended beyond the University both locally and nationally. As well, he has been a leading force in developing a program of research on medical and graduate education at the School of Medicine. Medical students who have taken the preclinical NextGen curriculum enthusiastically joined together to nominate and support Bob’s recognition through this award.

Adrian Halme has been promoted to Associate Professor of Cell Biology effective July 1st. This is in recognition of his innovative research program on regeneration and growth control using the Drosophila model, as well as his well-known effectiveness as an educator of undergraduates, graduate students and medical students.

For 25-year-old Kelly Barford, a fourth-year neuroscience graduate student working in the Winckler Lab, just keeping her schedule straight is a challenge. Each week she juggles time in her research lab, science classes she teaches in area elementary schools, and leadership roles in “Women in Math and Science” and “Science Delivered Charlottesville.” Recently, Barford took an hour in a coffee shop (coffee is pretty much a staple of her diet) to answer a few questions about the BIMS program—an interdisciplinary graduate program that prepares PhD students to become scientific leaders—and her personal path.

We are pleased to announce that Adrian Halme, Assistant Professor of Cell Biology, is the recipient of one of the 2017 UVa Medical Education Fellowship Awards from the Dean’s Office. This award will fund release time for Adrian’s further development of a writing workshop available to 1st year graduate students in all of the BIMS PhD programs. This Workshop was developed in collaboration with Jim Casanova, Professor of Cell Biology, and a number of BIMS faculty serve as mentors for the participating students. The workshop is focused on developing actual fellowship applications, some of which have been submitted to external funding agencies and resulted in funded fellowships for graduate students. Development of effective writing skills is a crucial tool for the success of future scientists and educators.

Gordon Laurie of the UVA School of Medicine’s Department of Cell Biology has developed a new potential treatment for dry eye, with human testing to start in March. The drug differs from other treatments of dry eye in that it aims to treat the cause of dry eye instead of masking the symptoms. Read the article in UVA Today here.

The Antibody Engineering and Technology Core (AbET) directed by Cell Biology faculty member, Dr. Bhupal Ban along with Faculty Director, Tim Bullock, Ph.D. and staffed by Sally Adams and Donna Adams was awarded the “Outstanding Core of the Year” 2016 recognition. It was noted that the core under Dr. Ban’s leadership has undergone an incredible transformation moving beyond the production of monoclonal antibodies to making recombinant antibodies, humanizing antibodies and general protein recombinant expression. Progress is also under way to secure libraries for antibody production as well. It is expected that these advances will position the core to support developing translational projects among the SoM faculty.

We are pleased to announce that Gordon Laurie, Professor of Cell Biology, was selected to be a member of the inaugural class of Pinn Scholars in the School of Medicine for 2016. The Pinn Scholars program was designed to support and recognize our mid-level faculty and is named in honor of Dr. Vivian Pinn, the only woman and only African American graduate of the UVA School of Medicine Class of 1967. Gordon was chosen on the basis of his past research accomplishments and a proposed research project, to take his work in novel directions. His project: Development of a structural model of ocular homeostasis to support the development of candidate drugs for dry eye disease.

Congratulations to Dr. Chan Choo Yap (Winckler Lab) for having her paper selected as the “paper of the week” for the Dec 23, 2016 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Dr. Yap carried out analysis on the protein doublecortin (DCX) which is mutated in humans in a neurodevelopmental disorder, called Lissencephaly. The paper dissected the cellular phenotypes of several DCX patient mutations and discovered that distinct DCX alleles caused dysfunction by different cellular mechanisms. In addition to discovering distinct loss-of-function alleles, Dr. Yap found one allele which unexpectedly showed toxic gain-of-function effects in neurons through misfolding and aggregation, causing an increase in autophagy. An image of DCX mutant aggregates in cultured neurons was selected as the cover image for the issue.

Congratulations to George S. Bloom, PhD, Professor of Biology, Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Director, Neuroscience Undergraduate Program, on his recent election to the rank of Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Each year the AAAS Council elects members whose “efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished.” Dr. Bloom was recognized in the Section on Biological Sciences for his contributions to the fields of cell biology and neurodegeneration, particularly for advancing our knowledge of microtubule-binding proteins and cell function. His research has focused on the molecular and cellular defects found in Alzheimers disease.